Rhea wiped the blood off her knees and sighed in relief. At least, she did not have to run. She had bad period cramps and the coach was not believing her. The coach always made them run or do the gym work even if the girls were on period as sometimes the girls lied to avoid the gym. So, Rhea made herself fall hard on the ground and got her knees bruised.
The new girl accompanied her to the infirmary. Must be because she was new, she did not exactly get intimidated by Rhea's stare.
"Do not rub it with your hand," the nurse warned.
"I am not rubbing it, sister," Rhea said. The nurse insisted the students call her 'sister', for some reason.
"Last month, you fell too. And the month before. There is always a gap of around thirty-five days between each injury," she said.
"Let's say my luck is related to the calendar," Rhea said.
The nurse bandaged her knees and made her drink a whole glass of water.
"I am dizzy," Rhea said. She always looked sick anyway because of staying up a long time at night without fail almost every night.
"Lie down. I will send word to the coach," the nurse said.
Rhea felt irritated when the new girl remained.
"Are your cramps bad?" the girl asked.
"Bad enough to make me want to rip anyone's head off who makes me run the whole field twice," she replied and closed her eyes.
"I saw you holding your stomach twice and making a… painful expression. It must be hurting quite a lot. I have bad period cramps too, so I know," the new girl said. "By the way, I am Lola."
'Lola?'
"I bet you know my name already," Rhea said dryly.
"Yes. Rhea. Mr. Henderson praised you today," Lola said. "You are really good at chemistry."
"I can be good at anything if I try hard enough," Rhea said.
"Arrogant enough!"
Rhea shrugged and Lola laughed. "I love your attitude," she said, her dry lips cracking as she smiled. Rhea felt physically pained just to watch it. How could someone's lips be so dry? And why the hell the girl was not using any chapstick or something?
"My sister is a little like you. She is really mean and…"
"If you think I have been mean, you haven't seen enough yet," Rhea said and drank some more water. The day was hot and she just wanted to swallow a block of ice.
"You are not mean, but really confident."
Now, Rhea had to laugh. Rhea could be confident and not confident at all at the same time. If she was confident, she was just overconfident. And if she was not feeling it, she was not confident at all. There was nothing in between.
She was too confident in her sense of style. She knew she made people intimidated and was proud of it. She walked with her head high, chest up. She turned heads and she knew it.
She believed she was not naturally beautiful enough, but she knew how to make use of what she was born with, just with a little bit of personal style.
When Rhea entered a room, she had the audacity to act like she owned the place even without trying. It came naturally out of her. And that was what pissed people off and made them dislike her.
She just loved to be hated.
'If you are not hated, you have accomplished nothing in life.'
"My sister Sam is really confident. You must have seen her," Lola said.
"Yeah, yeah, that one blonde girl who entered the classroom as if it was a runway and kept flipping her hair like a cow's tail, wearing the most disgusting-smelling perfume I have ever smelled," Rhea said. "Of course, I have seen her."
"You should not talk like that about others, Rhea," Lola said.
Rhea shrugged. When she heard there were a set of triplets coming to their school, she was a little interested as she had never seen triplets in real life, only twins. But she was disappointed when the three of them looked different, even though they had the same face. She wanted to get confused in differentiating them, however, it was as easy as differentiating between the sun and the moon and the earth.
The elder one was Samara, whose name instantly reminded Rhea of the movie 'Rings'. Samara had dyed platinum blond hair and she liked to flip it all the time for no reason and chewed bubblegum whenever Rhea saw her. The middle one was Lola. Her name was Lolita, originally. Their parents must be one hell of idiots to name their daughter 'Lolita'.
'Were they drunk when they named her? Everyone knows what 'Lolita' means and what this word is used to describe. Hell, did they not even read 'Lolita' by Vladimir Nabokov? Now, that's too much!'
Rhea pitied this Lola girl. She was surely being bullied.
Whatever. It was not Rhea's place to care for a random girl.
And the third one was a boy named Chris. His name was actually Christian, but everyone called him Chris. He had jet-black hair and he was rather fashionable. Rhea approved his fashion sense.
Among the siblings, Lola was the simple one.
"Where are your friends? I see no one, so I stayed in case you got lonely," Lola said.
"I don't have… Ah, I do have this one friend," Rhea said, remembering she made Hugo her friend. Although she only made him her friend to keep an eye on him, he seemed to take it very seriously. In the end, she decided to give it a go for real, if Hugo turned out to be innocent.
"Where is she then?"
"He is probably making his way here," Rhea said and added, "He is here."
Lola did not hear any noise, but within a minute, a tall boy entered the infirmary. He had a worried look on his face. Lola had to admire his looks. Boy, was he so handsome…
"How are your knees? I left for just a minute to get something to drink and when I came back, you weren't there. The coach said you took a bad fall," Hugo said, fidgeting his hands as he struggled not to touch Rhea's knees to see how bad the injury was.
Rhea just shrugged. "Not as bad as yours for sure," she said.
"Well… now that your boyfriend is here, I will take my… leave," Lola said hesitantly.
Lola knew who the boy was. It was Hugo Barrett. She had heard about him a lot right after joining the school three days ago. Girls loved his looks and besides, he was a great student and a renowned basketball player.
"There you go," Rhea said tiredly.
"I'm not her boyfriend," Hugo said patiently, but even Lola, who did not have experience in love knew he did not like to admit it. "We are good friends."
"Just friends," Rhea said.
"What's wrong with adding 'good'?" Hugo asked.
"You are making things complicated for no reason."
"That's what you are doing," Hugo said and Rhea just looked away from him as if she was tired of talking.
Hugo then looked at Lola and gave her an appreciative nod. "Thank you for bringing her to the infirmary. Ah, I forgot to introduce myself. I am Hugo."
"I am Lola," Lola said, blushing. She was not comfortable around boys.
"She is one of the triplets," Rhea said.
"I see. It's nice knowing you," Hugo offered her a small smile.
"Same here. Well, see you later, Hugo and Rhea. Rhea, I hope you get well soon," Lola said.
"I am already well," Rhea said.
"Don't mind her. She has black cat energy," Hugo said.
Lola took her leave quickly. She felt like she was interrupting their private moment when she was there. The moment she left the door, a hand grabbed her and pulled her away, putting a hand over her mouth.
"You made another friend?" Hugo asked.
"What friend?"
"You were friendly with her."
"I am not an unfriendly and rude person, Hugh. It's just… I am antisocial and I do not know how to get close to people. I cannot trust people. And to be honest, I have no intention to get close to many people anyway. But even if I don't like people, I am not an ill-mannered person usually. I am just straightforward."
"So, when you snap at people…"
"Sometimes it comes out naturally. I can't help it. And other times, well, most of the time, they deserve it," she said.
"She looks like a good girl," he said. "Maybe you can make her your friend."
Hugo said so, but actually, he did not want anyone else to be her friend. He wanted to be the only one close to her.
"Or, maybe you can make her your girlfriend or something. She was blushing when she was talking to you," she said.
"Maybe she is just uncomfortable around boys."
"Who knows? Maybe."